Hospitality Companies That Sponsor UK Work Visas (2026)

Hospitality is a significant sector on the sponsor register, but it is smaller than healthcare, IT, and care when measured by total CoS issued per year. The sector's sponsorship activity is also more concentrated than it might appear: the majority of CoS in hospitality come from a relatively small number of large hotel groups, restaurant chains, and contract catering businesses, while thousands of smaller hospitality businesses hold licences they rarely or never use.

This concentration matters for your job search strategy. A boutique hotel or independent restaurant may hold a sponsor licence but may never have actually run a sponsored hire, and their HR team may have little familiarity with the process. A large hotel group with multiple properties that has issued dozens of CoS in the past year is a fundamentally different prospect.

The other important distinction is occupation eligibility. General front-of-house, bar, kitchen, and catering roles do not qualify. Chefs (SOC 5434), hotel and accommodation managers (SOC 1221), and restaurant and catering establishment managers (SOC 1222) are medium-skilled and appear on neither the current Immigration Salary List nor Temporary Shortage List. They are therefore unavailable to a fresh applicant under those codes, regardless of seniority or salary, unless a future rules change adds them.

Major hotel chains often hold sponsor licences and may sponsor genuinely eligible higher-skilled roles in areas such as finance, technology, engineering, or specialist corporate management. The licence does not make every vacancy at a hotel eligible.

Contract catering and facilities-management groups also appear in historic CoS data, but a catering title must still map to a currently eligible occupation code. Employer size, international experience, or a high salary cannot by itself reopen a medium-skilled code that is off both lists.

Restaurant groups and independent venues should not be targeted for a fresh Skilled Worker chef application under SOC 5434 on the basis of past sponsorship. Workers continuously sponsored in an eligible medium-skilled occupation since before 22 July 2025 may have transitional options and should check the exact rules for their circumstances.

SOC 5434 is chefs; cooks are SOC 5435 and are ineligible. SOC 1221 covers hotel and accommodation managers, while SOC 1222 covers restaurant and catering establishment managers. All three are medium-skilled codes.

As checked on 15 August 2026, 5434, 1221, and 1222 appear on neither the Immigration Salary List nor the Temporary Shortage List. A new applicant cannot qualify under one of those codes merely by meeting £41,700 or the occupation going rate. The applicable pre-22 July 2025 continuous-permission provisions are for transitional workers, not new recruitment.

Some corporate, technical, financial, or specialist roles within hospitality businesses remain higher-skilled under other codes. The employer must use the code matching the real duties; changing a title to avoid the medium-skilled restriction is not permitted.

Given that many hospitality businesses hold licences but use them infrequently, CoS activity filtering is especially important in hospitality. On VisaAtlas, filter for hospitality sector sponsors and sort by CoS activity. This will quickly surface the hotel groups and catering companies that actually run international recruitment programmes, rather than giving you a long list of pubs and restaurants that applied for a licence years ago and have never used it.

Consider combining the hospitality filter with a specific city or region filter if you have location preferences. London has by far the largest concentration of hospitality sponsors with genuine activity, but Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, and other major tourist and business destinations also have active hotel and restaurant sponsors.

For hospitality roles, use the VisaAtlas SOC Code Intelligence tool to identify the likely code, then verify current eligibility against the official lists before targeting employers. A salary check is relevant only after the occupation is open to your type of application.